Top Dems Stall Miers, Bolten Contempt Vote

Can it possibly be true that members of Congress are only now realizing the dire situation of the U.S. economy, not to mention Asian and other economies around the world? Is it really possible that they are all that out-of-touch?

Many of our financial lives began getting shaky as far back as late 2000. Since 9/11/01 it has been a steady down-hill slide, even though many of our membership saw the writing on the wall when the towers came down. (The initial expense of getting as far off the grid as possible is a bit staggering, especially if your name isn't Rockefeller or Kennedy, Gates or Winfrey, and it takes time.)

Or could it be that the world economies, especially that of the U.S., have become so obviously in deep trouble that even the most concrete among their constituents cannot help but see it, so Bush and Congress have no choice but to get their act together (even if it is way too late to do anything but, maybe, kick the can down the road (which was the Bush plan all along) until he is no longer in office? Of course, the latest quakes on Wall Street are always another excuse for a few more billion in corporate welfare. The Democrats will be all too happy to give a rebate to taxpayers of the poorest kind, who will have no choice but to spend it....on a tank of gas, maybe.

Those who are too poor to even pay taxes are still invisible, as they always have been and always will be, no matter what Hillary says, until they realize that invisibility has its advantages and decide to use those advantages in some fairly creative ways to begin stirring the waters of revolution. It has been a very long time, if ever, since the poorest of the poor stood a chance of being joined by others of higher socio-economic levels in a true revolt against a system that is killing them and will leave their children with no future at all.

So, why delay contempt citations when no one, not even Bush the Dumber, can refuse to get on-board with the stimulus package? What does one have to do with the other?

By: John Bresnahan January 23, 2008

House Democrats will postpone votes on criminal contempt citations against White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers, while congressional leaders work with President Bush on a bipartisan stimulus package to fend off an economic downturn, according to party leaders and leadership aides. Senior Democrats have decided that holding a controversial vote on the contempt citations, which have already been approved by the House Judiciary Committee as part of its investigation into the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, would “step on their message” of bipartisan unity in the midst of the stimulus package talks. Bush, citing executive privilege, has refused to allow Bolten or Miers to testify before the House Judiciary panel about the prosecutor purge. And former deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove was barred by the administration from appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the same issue. “Right now, we’re focused on working in a bipartisan fashion on [the] stimulus,” said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), indicating that the contempt vote is not expected for weeks, depending on how quickly the stimulus package moves. Brendan Daly, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), said “no decision has been made” as to when a criminal contempt vote would be held by the House. The Judiciary Committee approved contempt citations against Bolten and Miers on July 25, but Pelosi has yet to bring the measures to the floor. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved similar contempt citations against Bolten and Rove shortly before Congress adjourned in December. Stimulus fever hits Capitol Hill Schwarzkopf to endorse McCain Congress' black women favor Hillary The White House has declined to turn over internal documents sought by House and Senate Democrats looking into the U.S. attorney firings. And White House counsel Fred Fielding has offered only very limited circumstances under which current and former top White House aides can be interviewed about the firings. Miers, a lawyer now back in private practice in Dallas, cited a White House claim of executive privilege and declined to appear at a July 12 hearing of the House Judiciary Committee. White House aides have dismissed the prospect of a contempt battle with the Democratic-controlled Congress as a distraction from more pressing work, such as dealing with the war in Iraq and the nation’s sagging economy. Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales also threatened to prevent Jeffrey Taylor, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, who would represent the Congress in a legal battle with the White House, from going to court to enforce the subpoenas. And Gonzales’ successor, Michael Mukasey, declined during his confirmation hearing to say definitively how he would handle the issue. Pelosi, who personally supports the contempt citations, has gotten mixed messages from her own leaders, as well as rank-and-file members, on whether to move ahead, although it is clear that there are not now enough votes for the citations to be approved by the House, according to Democratic insiders. “When we have the votes, we’ll go ahead with this. Right now, the votes are just not there,” said one top House Democratic insider, speaking on the condition of anonymity. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and other members of his panel have pressed Democratic leaders to hold the contempt vote, arguing that a failure to move would set a dangerous precedent that could weaken the Congress in any future investigations of the White House. Conyers’ staff declined to comment Tuesday. The Senate Judiciary Committee has not received any word from Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) when a floor vote on contempt citations might occur. “Sen. Reid is consulting with Sen. [Patrick] Leahy [D-Vt.] and others when to hold a vote,” said Reid’s spokesman, Jim Manley.

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The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

House votes along party lines: Contempt Citations

For Miers and Bolton.

White House will stall and stonewall and then Bush toadie Judge at the District Court will throw the whole thing out of court, providing Bush toadie DOJ even prosecutes the matter.

House Panel Votes for Contempt Charges in Firings Case

By Dan Eggen and Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, July 25, 2007; 2:48 PM

The House Judiciary Committee voted today to issue contempt citations for two of President Bush's most trusted aides, taking its most dramatic step yet towards a constitutional showdown with the White House over the Justice Department's dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys.

The panel voted 22-17, along party lines, to issue citations to Joshua B. Bolten, White House chief of staff, and Harriet E. Miers, former White House counsel. Both refused to comply with committee subpoenas after Bush declared that documents and testimony related to the prosecutor firings were protected by executive privilege.

"If we countenance a process where our subpoenas can be readily ignored, where a witness under a duly authorized subpoena doesn't even have to bother to show up . . . then we have already lost," committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) said before the vote. "We won't be able to get anybody in front of this committee or any other."

The vote represents the first overt step towards finding Bolten and Miers in criminal contempt of Congress. Next would come a vote of the entire House, followed by a referral to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

But the Bush administration has made clear it intends to block prosecution of any contempt charges, arguing that a presidentially-appointed U.S. attorney cannot legally be forced by Congress to flout the president's determination that the materials and testimony sought are protected by executive privilege.

White House spokesman Tony Snow responded with strong language.

"Now we have a situation where there is an attempt to do something that's never been done in American history, which is to assail the concept of executive privilege, which hails back to the administration of George Washington and in particular to use criminal contempt charges against the White House chief of staff and the White House legal counsel," he said.

Republicans on the panel argued strongly today against issuing contempt citations, and Democrats shot down two proposed GOP amendments before voting for the contempt findings.

"I believe this is an unnecessary provocation of a constitutional crisis," said Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.). "Absent showing that a crime was committed in this process, I think the White House is going to win an argument in court."

Sensenbrenner, the Judiciary panel's former chairman, said lawmakers would have a better chance by filing a lawsuit that challenged Bush's executive privilege claim, rather than pursuing contempt charges.

But Conyers responded that the administration had provoked the constitutional showdown. Democrats have rejected a proposal from White House counsel Fred F. Fielding to allow private, off-the-record interviews of presidential adviser Karl Rove and other aides about their roles in the removal of the prosecutors.

Contempt of Congress is a federal misdemeanor, punishable by as much as one year in prison and a $100,000 fine.

Brian A. Benczkowski, principal deputy assistant attorney general, wrote in a letter to lawmakers Monday that the Justice Department had a long-standing position, "articulated during administrations of both parties, that the criminal contempt of Congress statute does not apply to the president or presidential subordinates who assert executive privilege."

The same assertion also applies to Miers, Benczkowski wrote.

Today's actions come after seven months of hearings and subpoenas in the investigation of last year's prosecutor firings. The dismissals culminated a two-year effort by the White House and Justice Department that targeted some U.S. attorneys for removal based in part on their perceived disloyalty to the Bush administration and GOP priorities.

Several of the fired prosecutors were improperly contacted by GOP lawmakers or staff about politically sensitive investigations. Democrats complain that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and others have not offered any reasonable explanations for why most of the nine prosecutors were removed.

More than a half dozen senior Justice Department officials have resigned during the investigation.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

NYT To Leahy: It's Time To Put Up Or Shut Up

I'm not quite sure what remedy the NYT editor thinks that Leahy and the Judiciary Committee have, after the subpoenas are issued and ignored, but if there is one, we agree and add our voice to that of the Times.

June 8, 2007
Editorial

It’s Subpoena Time

For months, senators have listened to a parade of well-coached Justice Department witnesses claiming to know nothing about how nine prosecutors were chosen for firing. This week, it was the turn of Bradley Schlozman, a former federal attorney in Missouri, to be uninformative and not credible. It is time for Senator Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to deliver subpoenas that have been approved for Karl Rove, former White House counsel Harriet Miers and their top aides, and to make them testify in public and under oath.

Mr. Schlozman was appointed United States attorney in Missouri while the state was in the midst of a hard-fought Senate race. In his brief stint, he pushed a lawsuit, which was thrown out by a federal judge, that could have led to thousands of Democratic-leaning voters being wrongly purged from the rolls. Just days before the election, he indicted voter registration workers from the liberal group Acorn on fraud charges. Republicans quickly made the indictments an issue in the Senate race.

Mr. Schlozman said it did not occur to him that the indictments could affect the campaign. That is hard to believe since the Justice Department’s guidelines tell prosecutors not to bring vote fraud investigations right before an election, so as not to affect the outcome. He also claimed, laughably, that he did not know that Acorn was a liberal-leaning group.

Mr. Schlozman fits neatly into the larger picture. Prosecutors who refused to use their offices to help Republicans win elections, like John McKay in Washington State, and David Iglesias in New Mexico, were fired. Prosecutors who used their offices to help Republicans did well.

Congress has now heard from everyone in the Justice Department who appears to have played a significant role in the firings of the prosecutors. They have all insisted that the actual decisions about whom to fire came from somewhere else. It is increasingly clear that the somewhere else was the White House. If Congress is going to get to the bottom of the scandal, it has to get the testimony of Mr. Rove, his aides Scott Jennings and Sara Taylor, Ms. Miers and her deputy, William Kelley.

The White House has offered to make them available only if they do not take an oath and there is no transcript. Those conditions are a formula for condoning perjury, and they are unacceptable. As for documents, the White House has released piles of useless e-mail messages. But it has reported that key e-mails to and from Mr. Rove were inexplicably destroyed. At the same time, it has argued that e-mails of Mr. Rove’s that were kept on a Republican Party computer system, which may contain critical information, should not be released.

This noncooperation has gone on long enough. Mr. Leahy should deliver the subpoenas for the five White House officials and make clear that if the administration resists, Congress will use all available means to get the information it needs.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

These people are unfreakin'believable!

Bush Hit-Woman BehindProsecutor Firings Has Long Historyof Purges to Protect Bush
Published March 19th, 2007 in Articles

Harriet Miers fired investigator in 1997 to cover Bush draft-dodge
by Greg Palast, from the original reports for BBC Television and the Guardian (UK)

The Mister Big behind the scandal of George Bush’s firing of US Attorneys is not a ‘mister’ at all. The House Judiciary Committee has released White House emails indicating that the political operative who ordered the hit on prosecutors too honest for their own good was Harriet Miers, one-time legal counsel to the President.

But this is not the first time that Miers has fired investigators to protect Mr. Bush.

In 1999, while investigating Governor George Bush of Texas for the Guardian papers of Britain, I obtained an extraordinary, and extraordinarily confidential, memo to the US Attorney’s office in Austin. It disclosed that, in 1997, Governor Bush secretly suggested to the chairwoman of the Texas Lottery Commission that she grant a contract to the client of a Bush ally.

The Governor’s back-door demand to the Lottery chairwoman was not so easy. Bush wanted the Lottery to grant a multi-billion dollar contract to GTech Corporation. But GTech hadn’t even bid on the contract - and a winner was already announced.

There was only way for the Chairwoman to carry out the fix: fire the director of the Lottery who had discouraged GTech from bidding because of its history of corruption.

The Chairwoman, Harriet Miers, did the deed: fired the Lottery director; Miers then ignored the winning bid — and gave Bush’s favored company the contract, no bidding, in perpetuity.


Miers and the Draft

Neither Miers nor President Bush have ever denied the contents of the memo [I’ve posted it here] despite repeated requests from the Guardian and BBC Television.

Bush’s attempt to appoint Hit-woman Harriet to the US Supreme Court in 2005 surprised many. Not me. Miers, personal and governmental lawyer for George Bush, had quite a file on her boss, and he must have been grateful for her discretion.

Most crucially, she knew why Bush so desperately needed to give GTech the lottery contract.

The heart of the matter was the then-successful cover-up of the Bush family’s using its influence to get young George Bush into the Texas Air National Guard and out of the Vietnam war draft.

The memo to the US Attorney reads:

“Governor Bush thru [name withheld] made a deal with Ben Barnes not to rebid because Barnes could confirm that Bush had lied during the ‘94 campaign [for governor of Texas]. Bush was asked if his father … had helped him get in the National Guard. Bush said no he had not, but the fact is his dad call then-Lt. Gov. [Ben] Barnes ….”

Lt. Governor Barnes, through a cut-out, called the Texas Air Guard commander and got Bush into the ‘top gun’ seat and out of the war.

You may recall that in 2004, years after we reported this story in Britain, Barnes confessed to the draft-dodge fix on 60 Minutes. [That was the report that brought down Dan Rather; but the Barnes confession was never challenged.]

What 60 Minutes missed is the creepy Miers involvement. Barnes, after he left the post of Lt. Governor, became a lobbyist — for GTech, the lottery company. By using his influence to get and keep the lottery contract for GTech, Barnes picked up quite a nice fee: over $23 million. With those millions in his pocket, Barnes kept a happy and lucrative silence about his saving little George Bush from the draft.

According to the memo from the US Attorney’s office, Barnes met with Bush about GTech and the lottery. Then,

“The Governor talked to the chair of the lottery [Miers] two days later and she then agreed to support letting GTech keep the contract without a bid.”

Note something else here: this information was sitting in the hands of the US Attorney. Yet, no action was taken in 1997 though we now know that, from Barnes’ confession in 2004, the accusation about his putting in the fix for young George Bush is true.

An insider told BBC TV that the US Attorney’s office and Justice Department, though under Democratic control, never acted because they discovered that Barnes, a Democrat, had not only manipulated the system to get George Bush into the Texas Air Guard, Barnes did the same for the sons of Democratic big wigs including Congressman (later Senator) Lloyd Bentsen and Governor John Connolly.

In other words, control over a US Attorney and what is called their “prosecutorial discretion” is worth its weight in gold to politicians. They can provide protection for cronies and exact punishment on enemies. And no one knows that better than “Justice” Harriet Miers and her boss, fighter pilot George W. Bush.

***********************
This report is adapted from Greg Palast’s New York Times bestselling book, ARMED MADHOUSE: From Baghdad to New Orleans — Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild. New edition to be released April 24.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.